Trading Post

In preparation for purchasing myself a copy of the newly released Microsoft Flight Simulator 10 (aka FSX), I’m gonna need to do a round of hardware upgrades. I primarily need a new video card as my trusty old ATI Radeon 9600 Pro is starting to show its age in newer games. This is where the conundrum begins. I don’t wait to buy another AGP graphics card since even the cheapest PCI Express x16 cards can wallop pretty much any old AGP card. However, when I last upgraded, I didn’t consider the future of graphics, so my motherboard doesn’t do PCI-E, meaning I’ll need a new motherboard too. The geek in me says “do it now,” while my gut says “wait for DirectX 10 parts to be released,” and my wallet says, “you won’t be able to afford those for a while anyway” so I’m pretty much leaning towards going for it. In a bit of quick research, I think I can keep my current processor (Athlon64 3000+) and memory (1GB DDR400) and drop those into the ECS NFORCE4-A75 and replace the ATI 9600 with the PNY VCG66256XPB or something similar. This plan provides me with a much quicker gaming rig that I think will support FSX quite nicely, for less than $100.

Anyone here interested in a motherboard and/or graphics card? I’d prefer to trade for other goods rather than sell, but cash is always an option.

If anyone has any suggestions on other recommended parts, feel free to say so.

Don’t do it! Wait for DirectX10 and Vista or don’t do it at all! I’m serious, you’ll be very disappointed. I have a Pentium D 820, 1 GB DDR2 RAM, 7200RPM (250GB) HD, and a GEforce 7600GT (256MB, PCI express). This is not a supercomputer but still a very respectable system that will knock your socks off with FS2004 but guess what. FSX plays like CRAP on it!! CRAP!!!! And yes I downloaded the latest NVIDIA drivers too. I’ve tried everything to get some performance out of this game but it’s no use. The release of this game (FSX) at this time is a ploy to force simmers into upgrading their systems when the “new stuff” (Vista and DirectX10 cards) becomes available. And how convenient is it that it happened right before the Holidays??

I’m in the same exact position you’re in – my SHuttle Mobo doesn’t support PCI-E and my ATI 9600 XT doesn’t run FSX worth a damn. My chip and memory are dead beat slow though so I’ll have a bit more upgrading than you. Go for it!! One of us should be able to enjoy FSX

Thanks for the advice, Scott. I’ll be sure and take this into consideration. However, even if I went ahead with this for now, I could just drop-in a DirectX 10 card into this system when they become available.

For what it’s worth, I purchased a Abit NV8 motherboard and picked up an Abit ATI Radeon X600XT PCI-E graphics card and theres a HUGE performance boost in XP. Also, I installed Vista RC1 and the new FSX demo and the Flight Simulator performance under Vista literally *spanks* Windows XP on the exact same hardware. Under XP, I have to have details turned down a good bit, but under Vista, I can crank them up pretty high and still get very playable frame rates. Actual DirectX 10 cards will be utterly amazing.